His Girl Friday
by piaffe417
Summary: You never miss the water 'til the well runs dry.


Author's Note – I've done it again: somehow I've written a piece and let it languish on my C drive instead of posting it. Sigh. Will I never learn? Title comes from the Cary Grant/Rosalind Russell film – if you haven't seen it, make sure to. You won't regret it. Spoilers for "Semi-Detached" and "Want" (season 4).

**_His Girl Friday_**, dir. Howard Hawks  
Walter Burns: I wish you hadn't done that, Hildy.  
Hildy Johnson: Done what?  
Walter Burns: Divorce me. Makes a fellow lose all faith in himself. Almost gives him a feeling he wasn't wanted.  
Hildy Johnson: Oh, now look, junior... that's what divorces are for!

She looks at him differently lately. It's a recent change that's come with the fall, like the transformation of the leaves on the trees around the city – only instead of an expression that's warm like the oranges, reds, and yellows of autumn, hers is nervous and furtive and closer resembles the sort of disbelieving expression one sees in spring when the first warm spell hits but no one quite believes that winter is over. And with every questioning glance Eames sends in his direction, Bobby Goren sinks further inside himself, shrinking away from her in shame and fear. He's always worried that this would happen and yet even though all of the signs indicate the manifestation of that fear, he won't allow himself to accept it until she gives him some definitive outward sign that he's right, that it's finally happened.

And he wonders if it's true: has she lost her trust in him?

He's flirted with the line for years, going right up to the boundary between appropriate police conduct and the dark other side, the side where it becomes personal and it's no longer about serving the system, but serving himself. He's peeked over that line hundreds of times and Eames has never said anything. He's even tap-danced right on top of the line and all it's ever elicited from his partner is a roll of the eyes, a shake of the head, and a chiding phrase or two – all because she trusts him.

Or at least she did. Now he's not so sure.

In all the years that they've been partnered, he's always felt secure with her. He believes that she understands that his process of crime-solving is different than hers or any other cop she's ever worked with, that it has to be in order for him to spring from Point A to Point B. She even seems to understand his fascination with the human psyche and his occasional need to flirt with dangerous territory sometimes in order to get to the next step – the confession, the guilty verdict. Their record of solved cases and convictions speaks to this shared understanding between them. Yet now he fears that he's lost it and that it's his own fault.

She won't say it aloud and she'd never admit it to herself, let alone him – they've been partners for too long for that but there's no denying the change in her behavior. Bobby can see it with every quick aversion of her eyes and each uncomfortable blink that passes between them. Most telling, though, was her reaction to his outburst in the interview room earlier in the afternoon. She actually jumped when he slammed his hand down on the table in protest to ADA Ron Carver's verbal support of the death penalty for John Tagman, a man accused of murder and cannibalism. Eames hasn't jumped at anything Goren has done since the first year they were partnered - even when Carver and Goren are arguing at their most fervent pitch, she doesn't flinch. She has an uncanny ability to read him in each situation, way to predict how he will behave, that prevents her from being surprised by his antics, and yet that moment of surprise is frozen in Bobby's memory. He's replayed it in his head a thousand times, seeking something – he isn't sure what – that can reassure him that he's wrong and that he merely caught her off guard.

Mostly, though, he's seeking reassurance that he hasn't lost her.

The memory flashes through his mind once more: the four of them sit in the interview room and discuss the case – Goren, Eames, Carver, and Captain Deakins. Carver mentions going for the death penalty on the Tagman case, earning a nod of agreement from Deakins beside him. Goren feels vehemence rise up in the back of his throat and protests the harshness of the ADA, slamming his palm flat onto the table sharply, raising his voice to argue for life imprisonment in order to spare John Tagman's life. It's very clear in his mind that he is standing up for someone who doesn't have anyone to support him – after all, Tagman didn't have an Eames in his life to reel him in when his own overwhelming demons closed in - and Bobby feels that he owes it to him to be that person, if only for a little while. After all, if Tagman had possessed a friend of Eames' caliber, Bobby reasons, the four of them wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.

And it all made sense to him until that split second when he felt Eames start beside him. From the corner of his eye, he observed the tiny shudder in her body and saw her eyes widen sharply in surprise and then – incredibly – in fear. She hadn't seen it coming and the intensity of his reaction frightened her.

And that's the split second he keeps flashing back to as he pretends to be absorbed in his paperwork – the expression of fear that had swept over her face. She was afraid of him in that moment and as long as he has known her, Bobby has never seen his partner act that way. When she was on maternity leave, her replacement, Lynn Bishop, spent the majority of her tenure with him with that exact facial expression but he had never seen it cross Alex's face. It doesn't belong there.

Her parting words as she left the room still sting as well:

"Of all the people to stand up for…" she breathed in disbelief.

"It isn't the popular choice," he admitted to her, embarrassed by his outburst.

"I'll say," she frowned and he felt the weight of her disapproval land upon his shoulders.

If he's right and he's lost her, Bobby supposes that he's no better than John Tagman. There is, after all, a fine line between good and evil and on the Tagman case, Bobby leapt over that line with inches to spare. Even now, he's not sure which side of it he's standing on – he usually relies on Eames to tell him and today she's not talking.

"Bobby, what is it?" her voice finally breaks through his thoughts and he feels his own internal start of surprise.

"Hm?" he looks up and sees her studying his face intently, her own expression not fearful now, but curious and concerned. Obviously they're not so far from each other that she can't tell when he's gnawed a thought to the bone. He's even starting to taste the marrow on this one, yet there's still a certain uneasy distance that he can't seem to broach.

"You've been staring at the same page for the last half hour and you've looked at me about six times now," she tells him in her usual dry tone. "Not that I'm counting."

Gesturing with her pen to the form before him, she asks, "Do you need some help with the Heinrich file?"

"Oh, um – no," he shakes his head innocently and tries to refocus on the page, but the words start to swim around, preventing him from gripping them and shifting them into some semblance of order.

This does not go unnoticed by his partner, who speaks again: "Bobby, what's going on with you lately?"

He meets her gaze and sees the fear creeping into her eyes again, distrust peering out at the corners as she awaits his answer – and yet there is something else there too that he never noticed before, blinded as he was by his own fear of having lost her. Behind the concern and worry is genuine caring and – blessedly – hope. She wants to trust him, but more than that, she wants to understand. With her eyes now, she's asking him to explain and he fumbles, looking for the right words.

She's giving him a window of opportunity and he hopes he can squeeze through.

After all, he's stepped into new territory on these last few cases; he's opened himself up a bit more than he should and let their suspects in more than far enough to catch them. He thought – rather egotistically, he supposes – that he had kept both Nelda and John out far enough to keep his advantage. He thought he had enough practice at opening the door just enough to get his suspects to do the same in return, enough for him to get a foot in and work out whatever mental puzzle needed to be solved in order to close the case. After that, it was only a matter of sliding his foot (and, of course, his mind) out and stepping back into the light of the outside world.

So where did he go wrong these last two times? Was it because Nelda was beautiful and clearly attracted to him, yet also vulnerable and lonely like himself? Or did he see too much of himself in John, whose loneliness was palpable and overwhelming to the point of despair? Both had killed in an effort to stem the tide of their solitary lives and he supposes that the more time he'd spent with them, the more Bobby had realized how much like them he was. He went home every night to an empty apartment, he went to work alone every morning – but then Eames was there and he wasn't alone anymore.

That's the key, he realizes, the thing that keeps him on the right side of the line.

The irony of course, is that his relationship with Eames as the one thing that separates him from Nelda and John and yet by relying on that to get him through, he's nearly lost her. But "nearly" is the important word here and her expression as she awaits his words gives him hope that he can repair the damage. After all, she's with him now, using her eyes to pull him back into the present while she patiently awaits the answer to her question - the answer that still eludes him. After all, how does he tell her that these cases haven't been so much about catching murderers as proving to himself that he's not like them, that he's better at keeping the loneliness at bay?

How does he tell her that it's she alone who makes the difference and that if he's lost her, it's because he didn't realize exactly how much she fills up the empty spaces until now? What's that line from _His Girl Friday_, that old Cary Grant movie?

"_You never miss the water 'til the well runs dry."_

He fumbles with his hands in the air and moves his mouth, though no sound escapes until he finally says, "I'm – I've been… it's hard to explain."

She quirks an eyebrow. "Try, Bobby. Deakins and Carver have been getting on me to find out what's going on with you but they're not the ones I'm worried about. We're partners – the least you could do is fill me in."

"I know, I know," he nods, chagrined. But there isn't a way to tell her – not without saying something he shouldn't or worse, something hackneyed and empty. What is perhaps most frightening is the fact that he may never have the words to tell her how valuable she is to him and how much he relies on her. Saying something like that would cross an entirely different line and Bobby figures he's done enough line-crossing for one week.

Ultimately, he answers her question with a question – not what Eames was looking for, but the best he can do at the moment: "Do you know what it's like to be so lonely that you'd literally kill for a 'Hey, how are you?' from a hot dog vendor on the street?"

"What?" she's puzzled.

He waggles a hand to let her know there's more and she waits. "Nelda and Tagman – they both knew what that felt like. It manifested differently for both of them, but it was the same pathological need."

He pauses, looks back at his papers to see that the words now line up before his eyes, shuffles them, then looks back up at Eames. "Loneliness on that scale is overwhelming – I guess I just got sucked in by it."

He gives a shrug, feeling lighter somehow and yet wondering if he even answered her question at all. Moments later, he feels a tap on his shoulder and looks up to see her standing there holding a set of car keys in her hand.

"Come on," she says. "We need fresh air. And coffee – lots of coffee."

He stands silently and follows her to the elevator, puzzled by her actions – which she apparently senses because when the doors slide open and they step inside, she looks up at him. It's the kind of look he gets from her all the time, the kind he's used to in instances when he's overstepped a boundary – a look of bemused embarrassment, a look of wry indignation.

A look of trust.

He hasn't lost her – and that means that he hasn't lost himself. As the elevator glides downward, Bobby is certain of which side of the line he's standing on. Eames has pulled him back once more and once the elevator doors open, he'll walk forward into the light.

He supposes that the least he could do in return is buy her coffee – a double.

FIN


End file.
